


The Lifelong Idea of a Single Sky

by Verndiaglenn



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canon Compliant, Growing Up, M/M, and iwaoi if u squint, this is mostly tobio lovemail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:02:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28038873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verndiaglenn/pseuds/Verndiaglenn
Summary: “What? Ahhh, you don’t get it because you’re too young!” She flops onto his bed. “The sky’s a promise!”“A promise?”In which Tobio spends years of his life trying to figure out the sky.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio, Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 18
Kudos: 52





	The Lifelong Idea of a Single Sky

Tobio is five when his sister barges into his room, book in hand. At the age of thirteen, Miwa finds herself obsessed with love stories of all kinds. Like every other person overwhelmed with emotions, she needs an outlet, and luckily for Miwa, her younger brother is a good listener. 

(Well, he appears to be a good listener. Truth be told, five year olds can only focus for so long, and his sister is severely overestimating Tobio’s conversational abilities. That doesn’t quite matter though because if anyone asked Miwa, she would say, “Well, he’s different! My Tobio is amazing!”)

“Tobio! Tobio! You have to hear what happened in this story I was reading!” His sister’s face is bright and her eyes are sparkling. Miwa gets like this a lot, like when she scores a service ace, or when Tobio succeeds in bumping a volleyball. It’s nice to see her like this outside the courts. No matter where they are, Tobio likes it when his sister smiles. 

He doesn’t have the words to articulate that, so Tobio simply nods, waiting patiently for his sister to continue. He’s sitting on the floor of his room, rolling a volleyball back and forth between his hands.

“Okay, so the princess and her best friend had to go their separate ways…” Miwa starts, but finds herself needing to explain extra details to Tobio—details that he couldn’t really catch as she talks extremely fast. She goes in depth about the whens and wheres of the story, the whos and whats, and most importantly the path leading up to this separation.

As Miwa finally reaches the climax of her tale, she makes sure Tobio is paying extra close attention. “This is the best part, okay?”

That one sentence is the hook, drawing Tobio back, resetting his focus.

“So even though they’re going their separate ways. They said they’d always be together because the sky is connecting them. Isn’t that romantic?” Miwa looks at him expectantly, like she just told him the secret to the universe. 

Tobio ponders on his thoughts for a few seconds, piecing together everything he just learned, so that he can answer his sister’s question. When she speaks about it being romantic, he thinks about earlier conversations his sister has had with him about romance and love. With that, he finally reaches a conclusion and speaks slowly. “It seems sad.” 

The princess and her best friend could no longer see each other’s smiles or hear each other’s laughs. They wouldn’t be able to talk or play with each other anymore. If they aren’t together, it’d be hard to love, right?

“What? Ahhh, you don’t get it because you’re too young!” She flops onto his bed. “The sky’s a promise!”

“A promise?”

The sky is the sky. A promise is when Miwa or Kazuyo connect their pinky with Tobio’s and say things like they will surely take him to the park tomorrow. 

She instantly picks herself up like a spring. Now, she sits criss-crossed on his bed holding a finger up as if she’s a teacher. “Yea! It’s a promise that they’ll see each other again! Because that’s what it means to be connected!” 

“I still don’t get it.” Tobio frowns. The idea is too abstract for a child so young. 

“It’s okay. You’ll get it when you’re older.” She hops off of his bed to ruffle his hair. “My baby brother is very smart, after all.”

He flushes at that, not sure how to react to the sudden praise. As Miwa skips out of his room, Tobio wonders about what she said. He doesn’t quite understand how a sky brings people together, but he still likes how the princess keeps her best friend in her thoughts, even if they can’t see each other. He wonders if it’s the same with his parents, who come home when Tobio is already in bed. 

(When he sleeps that night, he dreams of his whole family playing volleyball together— Miwa, Kazuyo, and even his parents. It’s a nice dream.)

* * *

Seven years later, when Tobio is in his first year at Kitagawa Daiichi, he overhears a conversation between Oikawa and Iwaizumi. It’s a hot day, sometime in June. Practice is over, but instead of rushing to go home, many of the players are sitting under a tree, enjoying the popsicles Oikawa’s older sister brought them. Tobio is given a blueberry flavored one as Oikawa insisted it was a perfect match for him. 

“Iwa-chan, would you still be my best friend if I was kidnapped and forced to live the rest of my days in Italy?” Oikawa muses as he lays on his back, staring up at the sky above him. His popsicle was already eaten as he and Iwaizumi raced to see who would finish theirs first. Iwaizumi won, just barely. (Secretly, Tobio wishes Kindaichi or Kunimi would do something like that with him.)

“Where did that question come from? Why Italy?” Iwaizumi, who is laying opposite of Oikawa, so that the top of their heads touch as they count the clouds, asks with a disbelieving voice. 

“Calm down, Iwa-chan! It’s a hypothetical question!” Oikawa replies. “I can’t see your face, but I know it’s ridiculous because you’re thinking too hard about it.”

“Oh, shut up! Or else I’ll end up saying that I’ll stop being your friend after all!” While his words sound angry, the tone of his voice is anything but. It’s lighthearted. When Tobio looks at Iwaizumi’s face, he sees that he’s smiling.

“You are so mean to me!” Oikawa huffs. He crosses his arms like any child would. Iwaizumi sits up, and positions himself so that he can peer down at Oikawa. The boy still laying down opens his eyes so that he can clearly see his best friend’s face. Before he can say anything, Iwaizumi flicks Oikawa’s forehead. 

Oikawa makes a sound, similar to a “geh!” 

Iwaizumi laughs. “Okay, before you say anything. Yes. I would still be your friend, even if you were kidnapped and forced to live out the rest of your days in Italy.” 

“Hmph. Thought so!” Oikawa sits up now. He crosses his arm again and dramatically turns his head away. “But, I don’t know if I want to still be your friend, after all of that! I hope you stare up at the sky and longingly tell it how much you miss your dear Oikawa-san.”

The sky. 

Tobio, who has been listening the entire time, asks “Why would the sky remind Iwaizumi-san of Oikawa-san?” 

Oikawa turns his head towards Tobio quickly—like a string yanked his head to look this way. “Don’t go eavesdropping on conversations, Tobio-chan! It’s very rude of you!”

“Hey. It’s not his fault that your talking volume is equivalent to that of an elephant’s cry,” Iwaizumi says.

“Elephants are very intelligent.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that they’re loud.” Iwaizumi focuses his attention on Tobio. “Can you repeat your question? I missed it because of this animal.”

“Stop being mean to me!” Oikawa’s cries are ignored.

“I asked about what Oikawa-san said earlier, where he said you’d tell the sky that you miss him?” He accidentally makes it sound like a question. He fiddles with the popsicle stick still in his hand and avoids direct eye contact with Iwaizumi.

“Oh. Hmm...” Iwaizumi puts his hands under his chin. His eyebrows furrow as he thinks about Tobio’s question. “It’s sort of an expression? But I never really thought too much about it.”

“You never think about anything, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa chimes in. He dodges a light-hearted punch to his shoulder with ease. Maybe because he wanted to one-up Iwaizumi, he says, “Just this once, I’ll bestow my knowledge, alright Tobio-chan?”

Tobio nods. “Okay.” He focuses all of his attention onto Oikawa, like he does when he’s studying his serving or setting technique. 

“It’s because if I’m in Italy and Iwa-chan is here in Japan, the sky’s still the same. It’s like a thread connecting us! So, when Iwa-chan gazingly looks up at the sky, he can imagine his very smart, handsome best friend also looking up at the sky.” He laughs as Iwaizumi rolls his eyes. “Trust me! I know what I’m talking about. My sister read all her shoujo manga to me.”

“And me,” Iwaizumi says. “I still don’t think that protagonist should have married the delinquent.”

“I know! Her childhood friend was the better choice! He knew her better than anyone else! And do you remember that time where it was raining and he—” Oikawa continues to talk—the two returning to their own world.

Tobio thinks a bit more about what Oikawa said, comparing it to his sister’s words many years prior. Here’s what he thinks he’s figured out. When two people are away from each other, the sky is something that connects them both. By looking at the same sky, two people can remember each other, and one day, will come back together.

“It’s nice,” he whispers to himself as he’s looking up at the sky.

* * *

At the end of the first day of his final middle school volleyball tournament, the orange-haired boy who could fly appears before him one last time. 

“You!” He stands on the stairs, looking down at Tobio. He’s crying, and yet he stares at Tobio with such conviction. “If you’re the King that rules the court, I’ll have to defeat you, and I’ll be the last one standing!

Tobio is only momentarily surprised by the declaration. He watches the boy rub some of his tears away, and then he turns so that he could face him. He tells him a truth. “The last ones standing are the victors. Only the strongest. If you want to be the last one standing, become strong.” 

The wind blows behind him, a light breeze. The boy’s hair moves in the wind like it is a small flame—the type that with more fuel, it could be a burning blaze. He has no more tears, now. They stare at each other for what feels like an eternity before Tobio ultimately walks away.

He reunites with the rest of his team. They don’t greet him or anything, but he gets a glance from both Kindaichi and Kunimi at least. 

Tobio looks up at the sky—the setting sun painting it in an orange hue. It reminds him of that boy. He wonders if he’s looking at the sunset, too.

* * *

At the All-Japan Youth Training Camp, Tobio spends most of his dinners eating with Chigaya—who Tobio only knew as Broccoli #2 for the first few days. He leads the conversations, asking him about Karasuno, about the events of the day, and life in general. Tobio only answers when he has something to say. He knows he isn’t the best at conversation, so he appreciates Chigaya always choosing to spend time with him. At the current moment, Chigaya was in line, waiting to get some yakitarako onigiri. As Tobio waits for him, he stares outside the window, looking up at the night sky. In the Tokyo skies, there are no stars to see, but it’s still comforting to look at. 

His mind wanders to Hinata—which has been a common occurrence lately. He’s back in Miyagi. Practice must have ended, so he must be heading home now. The skies in the mountain he must cross must surely have stars shining, but Tobio figures it wouldn’t really matter, because Hinata would devour the stars if he needed to. 

He doesn’t really understand what he’s thinking and he truly doesn’t know why he’s always thinking about Hinata. Tobio has always thought more about the sky than a person normally would, he’s sure, but now those thoughts are jumbled with Hinata. 

“Hey. You seem tense, are you alright?” Chigaya asks as he walks back over.

“I’m… fine. Just thinking.” He has a harder grip on his chopsticks.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Chigaya smiles to reassure Tobio.

“It’s not that important.” Tobio feels heat creeping onto his cheeks. He’s still not used to people, like Sugawara, being like this. 

“It’s fine! We’re, like, friends now. Tell me what’s on your mind!” He puts his hand on Tobio’s shoulder, steadying him. Tobio sighs and realizes he had been tense.

“Do you…. do you…” He doesn’t know how to proceed. What does he even ask? He averts his eyes from Chigaya’s comforting gaze. “What would you say if someone thought of someone else when they looked at the sky?”

Chigaya’s eyes widen a bit in surprise. “Oh, I was expecting something like, what should I do if the best setter in Japan and one of the top aces in the country were teaming up against me and planning my death…”

Tobio thinks about how something as ridiculous as that is something Hinata would definitely say. Then again, knowing his luck, maybe it’d actually happen. And again, he finds himself thinking about Hinata. 

“Well. I think that’s fine? It’s good to think about the people in your life, right? And it’s sweet to think of someone when looking up at the sky, I’d say!” 

“I see…” Tobio’s question hasn’t really been answered, but he figures he shouldn’t worry about something like this. After all, he has volleyball to play. “Thank you.”

Chigaya laughs again. “I’m glad we’re talking a bit more! It’s nice!”

The two eat their dinner. Chigaya, encouraged by what he deems to have been a successful conversation, carries the night, more talkative than ever.

* * *

At nineteen years old, Tobio finishes up an evening practice match with his teammates. Ushijima and Hoshiumi, especially, played well—but that’s to be expected. He walks out of the building, ready to go home, ready to rest. As he looks up at the orange sky, he remembers that there is a twelve hour time difference between Brazil and Japan. As Japan’s sun sets, leaving a dance of orange, reds, and yellows, the sun must barely be peeking above the Brazillian ocean.

What is Hinata doing now? Most likely, he has already finished the morning meditations he talked about often in the group chat with Yachi, Yamaguchi, and Tsukishima. Was he getting ready to play a beach volleyball match right now? Or was he eating breakfast? Two very different images cross through Tobio’s mind. One is Hinata with hungry eyes, ready to conquer the sand. The other is Hinata smiling as he messily stuffs himself with bread rolls. Both make Tobio’s chest feel warm.

Now that he was older, Tobio understood his feelings towards Hinata. And yet, he doesn’t feel sad that there’s oceans between them. They will surely meet again. He has never been more sure of anything ever in his life. The single sky they are both under is a promise of that— a promise that they will meet on the grand stage. 

Tobio will wait patiently until that day. 

He takes his phone and dials a familiar number.

“Tobio? What’s the occasion? You rarely call your sister!”

“I just wanted to talk.”

“Oh? What about?”

“Do you remember all those years ago when you told me about the princess and her best friend?”

“You remember that? That was ages ago! I do remember, though. It’s hard to run away from what you liked in middle school.” She laughs. “Okay. What about it?”

“I finally understand why it was romantic.” He’s not embarrassed. His cheeks aren’t flushing, nor is his heart racing. In fact, Tobio feels like he’s floating. Everything about this just makes him… happy, and he wants to share it all with Miwa. 

“I knew you’d get it!” Tobio can clearly picture her giddy smile. “Tell me more!”

Tobio smiles. One last time, he loops up at the sky. “Do you remember my friend, Hinata?”

**Author's Note:**

> hi thank you so much for reading this! its over a week late, but it is in fact a birthday gift for my friend hyamara (@hyamara_ on twitter) u should follow them!! especially their art account!! their art rocks especially their kagehina art
> 
> since we're lovemailing friends shoutout to my friend @quireaux for looking this over! when she has time to show off her writing to the world its all over
> 
> ALSO a little author's note... i tried calliing chigaya brocolli #2 for the entire part and i felt so bad for him so we're all gonna learn his name now.... tobio included...
> 
> anyways my twitter is @sylveanh im sure i have a curiouscat link somwhere if u want to say hi or smth LJAKLSDFK anyways again!! thank you so much for taking ur time to read this!


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